Out For Revenge

 

We need to have clear vision when we look at the truth of American politics in 2024, not as we might wish it to be, but what it actually is.  Tom Nichols does that in The Atlantic when he tells us the stark truth about the people we call MAGAts, the Republican base that supports the Malignant Loser and his message of grievance and resentment.  Here's a long excerpt:

... The Republican base actively embraces Trump’s grievances; it emulates his pettiness; it supports his childlike inability to accept responsibility. These voters are not sighing in resignation and voting for the lesser of two or three or four evils. They are getting what they want—because they, too, are set on revenge.

These voters are not settling a political score. Rather, they want to get even with other Americans, their own neighbors, for a simmering (and likely unexpected) humiliation that many of them seem to have felt ever since swearing loyalty to Trump.

A lot of people, especially in the media, have a hard time accepting this simple truth. Millions of Americans, stung by the electoral rebukes of their fellow citizens, have become so resentful and detached from reality that they have plunged into a moral void, a vortex that disintegrates questions of politics or policies and replaces them with heroic fantasies of redeeming a supposedly fallen nation. [snip]

Strings of losses, including the 2018 Democratic-wave election, Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory, and the “red wave” that never happened in 2022, forced MAGA voters to construct an alternate reality in which the patriotic, hardworking majority has been repeatedly thwarted by schemes so complicated that SPECTRE would have struggled to execute them. Worse, a culture (especially in the media) that for a time was desperate to understand their views now either ignores them or treats them as dangerous curiosities.

The only good thing that came out of Iowa last night is that we are now spared further public performances from Vivek Ramaswamy. And it is a hopeful sign that nearly half of the caucus-goers chose someone besides Trump. But we are fooling ourselves if we think that the coming year will be just another peaceful competition between two political parties. Trump wants payback; so do millions of voters who have no one to blame for their sense of humiliation but themselves.  (our emphasis)

These are the majority of Republicans who say they'll vote for the Malignant Loser even if he's convicted of any of the 91 felonies on which he's been charged.  Their minds have been twisted and poisoned by decades of vicious lies and propaganda from right- wing media and scurrilous politicians profiting from stirring up hatreds and divisions, all reinforced by charlatan "clergy" and family / tribal tradition and conformity.  

This is the aggrieved mindset of every revanchist movement throughout history.  For America, it's the "Lost Cause 2.0"  Forewarned is forearmed.

(Photo: Don't worry, we won't be talking to you / Reuters)

The Next White Supremacist Mass Shooter?

News Item:

An armed supporter of President Donald Trump and Republican Senator Ted Cruz was detained by police Wednesday outside a migrant community center in El Paso, according to Dallas News.  [snip]

Police spokesman Robert Gomez said Thursday that a 21-year-old “suspicious subject” was “detained and interviewed” before being released. He was reportedly armed with a gun and knife.

He was spotted lurking outside the Casa Carmelita shelter.

“He was sitting in his truck wearing blue latex gloves, and brandishing a knife. Police recovered a loaded gun, ammo, and a bag of white powder from his person,” Casa Carmelita wrote in a Facebook post.

"Released."  That's nice.

You'll note the truck is plastered with Trump and Cruz advertising and, in a nod to an ancient conspiracy theory of far right- wingers still pushed by fever swamps like Infowars, a "flouride" bumper sticker:


 

JFC, these people are nuts.  And they're not chastened, they're emboldened.

Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

Is the Republican Party a hate group?  Leonard Pitts, Jr., has our answer, which we've excerpted at length:

Here’s how The Southern Poverty Law Center defines a hate group.

It is, they say, “an organization that — based on its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities — has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.” [snip]

Granted, in its “official statements or principles,” the party doesn’t meet the SPLC standard. Its activities and the statements of its leaders are, however, another matter. [snip]

For half a century, then, the GOP has taught white voters racial resentment, taught them to prioritize concerns about white prerogative over concerns about shuttered factories, dirty water, lack of healthcare, foreclosed futures. It did this in code — “Willie Horton,” “tax cuts,” “welfare queen” — which, while obvious to all but the most gullible, still allowed respectable white men and women to maintain fig leaves of deniability.  [snip]

Donald Trump is the payoff of that devil’s bargain. His “innovation” has been to shred subtlety and abandon code. With blunt, brutish clarity, he tells four black and brown women to “go back” where they came from, and if you don’t see racism there, you’ll never see it anywhere.

Yet bad as that is, the monstrous part is that his audience, trained by 50 years of appeals to their basest selves, cheers him on. They no longer need fig leaves. That should tell you something. As should the fact that the GOP seems to have abandoned policy altogether.

What do they stand for? Do they still care about the national debt? Do they have a strategy to combat global warming? What will they do about Russia and Iran? Who knows?

Because all they are now is the party of “Send her back!” — of outrage over Colin Kaepernick kneeling and April Ryan asking questions. That’s what passes for ideas in today’s GOP. And if that’s what Trump has made them, it’s not like they fought him tooth and nail.

So is the GOP a hate group? It’s sobering that the question can even be asked. But the inevitable answer is downright chilling. Because the SPLC offers a fair and cogent definition of that term.

And the GOP fits it with room to spare.

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article232893067.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article232893067.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article232893067.html#storylink=cpy

No matter how they try to distract and deflect*, racism is part of their DNA, and they have their leader who has given them permission to hate and to act on that hate.

Virginia Heffernan tells us not to buy into the media narrative of Trump's juggernaut base:

Back in the arena at East Carolina University, the bellowing helped the modest-sized rally make up in volatility what it lacked in numbers. Trump lied again. He said there were no empty seats. There were empty seats. Trump’s aide Brad Parscale took on the Spicer role, crowing on Twitter that 20,000 people were in the venue. Accurate counts put attendance at about 8,000. (For comparison, an average of 18,000 people attend every single men’s basketball game at the University of North Carolina.)  [snip]

Trump’s support is clearly not all phony. Polls show Republicans approve of the job he’s doing in high numbers, which raises the question of how big that polling pool really is. Trump’s critics, in any event, do their cause a grave disservice by following his lead and exaggerating his support, which gets people buzzing and may generate a bandwagon effect: real support following simulated support.

Or something even more sinister could happen. Anti-Trumpers might become cowed and discouraged enough to stay away from the polls because they are convinced the specter of a massive GOP base can’t be beat.

Don’t listen to Trump’s lies, skip the alarmism, and turn down the “send her back” volume. Above all, remind yourself that Trump’s Gallup approval rating has fluctuated between terrible (36.8%) and bad (42.7%). He isn’t our all-time favorite. Period.

Skip the alarmism, stay focused and work like hell.  That's how we excise the tumor in the White (Supremacist) House.

Greg Sargent explains why the "send her back" chant at Trump's North Carolina rally was a breaking point:

What changed? Well, the Times also reports that Trump advisers privately warned against letting these sentiments get out of control at his rally.

So I submit to you that the key difference is twofold: Trump’s naked hatred and cruelty was captured on live television, and along with it, so was the seething anger of the hard-core Trump base.

The whole nation saw in dramatic fashion that Trump voters understood his meaning perfectly well, and watched them not just agree with it but also amplify it with as ugly and hate-curdled a chant as one could imagine.

Sargent has much more about the Republican panic that has set in around their heretofore muted racism being exposed in such raw form.  And, of course, the "send her back" chant was led by Trump's rally leaders.

*Distraction/ deflection watch:  Lest we forget (we won't), there's the testimony Wednesday of Robert Mueller that has Putin's puppet in a state of agitation, and the connections between sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein with fellow predator Trump, something that's also never far from Trump's "mind."

As always, Infidel 753 has been laboring to bring us an impressive array of links to interesting items around the internet and beyond.  Go see what we mean!

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article232893067.html#storylink=cpy

Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links provided for the full articles.

Jeff Greenfield on the murder of Robert F. Kennedy, 50 years ago:

To see him at the podium claiming victory in the crucial California primary, jokingly thanking his dog Freckles, passionately hopeful that the divided country could come together, flashing a peace sign as he exhorts: ‘So it’s on to Chicago and let’s win there!” Knowing what is to come a moment later, it is hard not to assume that it was only Sirhan Sirhan’s bullets that kept Robert Kennedy out of the White House.

Sam Fullwood summarizes yet another study about how the dehumanizing rhetoric of sociopath Donald "Rump" Trump is "awakening and emboldening" his nativist, anti- democratic base, and the long- term threat that poses:

The most recent such study comes from political scientists Steven V. Miller at Clemson University and Nicholas T. Davis at Texas A&M University.  Their working paper – “White Outgroup Intolerance and Declining Support for American Democracy” – fires a warning shot to signal a budding threat to the nation. Miller and Davis collected and compared polling data compiled between 1995 and 2011 by the World Values Survey and discovered an escalating impulse among some white Americans to embrace “an unwillingness to associate or fraternize with individuals whose cultural, racial, or religious ideas or ways differ” from their own. They identified such attitudes as “socially intolerant,” which they also found to correlate with a willingness to sacrifice democratic notions, such as political compromise or respect for minority rights, if such principles conflicted with their selfish interests.  (our emphasis)

As Rump's minions frantically spin their inane thoughts about presidential powers and immunity, their notion that a president can't obstruct justice would have a hard time passing a smell test given this precedent:

Sitting GOP senators who voted to toss President Clinton from office for obstruction of justice:
BLUNT
BURR
CRAPO
ENZI
GRASSLEY
GRAHAM
HATCH
INHOFE
MCCAIN
MCCONNELL
MORAN
PORTMAN
ROBERTS
SHELBY
THUNE
WICKER
***
SESSIONS also voted to remove Clinton for obstruction.

— Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) June 3, 2018

There are primaries tomorrow in multiple States, including a problematic "jungle primary" in California:

There are primaries in five states Tuesday: California, New Jersey, Iowa, Montana, and New Mexico. 

California will likely be the most closely watched state. With seven Republican-held districts that Hillary Clinton won in 2016, the state is an integral part of Democrats’ path to regaining control of the House in November. 

But the states is also home to the chaotic “top two” primary system — in which all candidates of all parties compete against each other, with only the first- and second-place finishers advancing to the general election. It’s high stakes for Democrats, who legitimately fear losing out to Republicans because of the crowded field of Democratic candidates in many contests.

California should have done something about its primary system before now. We'll see if that omission will cause Democrats to miss an opportunity to pick up vulnerable Republican seats.

Man Baby Trump not like mean Frenchie boyfriend criticizing him!

A call between President Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron last week that focused on trade and immigration went badly and saw Macron be highly critical of Trump’s policies, two sources familiar with the call told CNN. 

"Just bad. It was terrible," one of the sources told CNN. "Macron thought he would be able to speak his mind, based on the relationship. But Trump can't handle being criticized like that."

Meanwhile, the Trumpy U.S. Ambassador to Germany (and ex- internet troll) wants to facilitate the spread of Trumpism far and wide in Europe:

Germany has asked the U.S. government to clarify remarks by President Donald Trump’s new ambassador to Berlin after he told a right-wing website he wanted to empower “other conservatives” in Europe. 

The comments from Richard Grenell, a former U.S. spokesman at the United Nations and outspoken defender of Trump, drew criticism from politicians across the German political spectrum, who cautioned him against meddling in domestic politics.

There's some diplomatic tact for you right there! Meddling in another country's domestic politics -- sounds Putin- esque.

Finally, we once again recommend the excellent link round- up provided by Infidel 753, containing "Various interesting stuff I ran across on the net over the last week."

President Spanky's "Douche-henge"

The other day, not long after he signed the $1.3 trillion spending bill with piddling funding for "border security" (not the border wall Mexico was supposed to pay for), white supremacist con man Donald "Rump" Trump (a.k.a., "President Spanky") was trying to keep up the con for his mouth- breathing base:

Great briefing this afternoon on the start of our Southern Border WALL! pic.twitter.com/pmCNoxxlkH

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2018

The fact is that those pictures Rump used were of a 2- mile stretch of what was a scrap metal barrier in Calexico (dating back to the '90s) being replaced, an upgrade that had been planned for years.

Last night on CNN, Republican strategist/ wit Rick Wilson had a good summary of what's going on here: 

“The fundamental promise is ‘I will keep the brown people away from you,'. The modality is ‘I will build a wall. Mexico will pay for it.’ There is no wall. There is no funding for a wall. He’s got these four pieces of concrete, sample sections in California, which I call ‘Douche-henge.’ It’s a symbol for these people, these suckers that believe the wall is real.” (our emphasis)

We've checked Rump's Twitter feed so you don't have to, and yes, there are many suckers who "think" the wall is going up and Rump is keeping his promise. (Sic transit gloria, America.)

Once again, to be clear, this is the totality of Rump's wall -- pardon -- "Douche- henge:"

Why We Can't Have Nice Things -- Obamacare Repeal Edition

 The stupid, it burns:

... GOP legislators know that their base isn’t interested in the mumbo-jumbo of actual health care experts. These voters are not interested in analysis, or extended debate. They don’t care who’s in favor of it or who’s against it, or for what reason. They’ve been told that Obamacare — which they hate — would be repealed, and the Affordable Care Act — which they like — would be improved.

If that sounds strange, remember that a third of all voters and about a quarter of GOP voters don’t realize these are the same things, and that’s the rub. No amount of expert testimony is going to change anyone’s mind about Obamacare. What the most vocal and angry part of the Republican base wants is a repeal of this thing called “Obamacare” because it is a political symbol and because President Trump promised them it would be repealed, totally and completely, on day one of his administration. What that would mean is as much a mystery to those angry voters as it is to many of the senators who supported that repeal. (our emphasis) -- Conservative Republican and former Senate staffer, Tom Nichols.  

Going on half a century of lies, propaganda and appeals to the fears and basest instincts of people, amplified in the last 30 years by a well- funded, ubiquitous right- wing radio and cable media networks, have brought us to where we are today. Of course, it's not just Obamacare (excuse me, the Affordable Care Act). Republicans foster the same malicious, militant ignorance Nichols notes and apply it to every major political issue today, from immigration to climate change to racism to tax policy. It's who they are.

Sic transit gloria, America.

Today's Cartoon - Sheeple

(click on image to enlarge)


(Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press)

It's true. When it comes to anyone with an "R" after their name, Republicans are sheeple.

Today's Cartoon Twofer - A Conning Linguist

(click on images to enlarge)


(Ed Hall, Halltoons.com)


(Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Plus, he'll throw in a scholarship to Trump University.

Morning "Economic Anxiety" Reading

Jelani Cobb writes at The New Yorker why neo- fascist evangelist Donald "Rump" Trump marks the end of any notion of "American Exceptionalism."  It's a worthwhile read;  here are some thoughts that stood out to us:

... Trump is partly a product of forces that the G.O.P. created by pandering to a base whose dilated pupils the Party mistook for gullibility, not abject, irrational fear that would send those voters scurrying to the nearest authoritarian savior they could find. The error was in thinking that this populace, mainlining Glenn Beck and Alex Jones theories and pondering how the Minutemen would have fought Sharia law, could be controlled. (For evidence to the contrary, the Party needed look no further than the premature political demise of Eric Cantor.) The old adage warns that one should beware of puppets that begin pulling their own strings. [snip] 

... The end result of Trump’s evangelism is that a xenophobic, racist, misogynistic, serially mendacious narcissist is poised to pull in somewhere north of fifty million votes in the midst of the most bitterly contentious election in modern American history. The easy analysis holds that Trump’s jihad against decency has wrecked the Republican Party, but the damage is far more extensive than this. [snip] 

... At a quaint moment in the recent past, it was possible to think that a decisive Clinton victory would exorcise Trumpism from public life. But, on the verge of the election, that idea increasingly seems like an indulgent delusion. The problem of Trump is not simply that his opinions far exceed his knowledge; it’s that what he does know is so hostile to democracy, not only in the Republican Party or the United States but in the world. Whatever happens on November 8th, we are at the outset of a much longer reckoning.

That we've arrived at this point could be traced to a number of factors, but Cobb rightly notes the impact of decades of poisonous propaganda coming from Republican media outlets like hate radio (you could add all the Murdoch- owned properties like Fox "News"/ Wall Street Journal/ New York Post, as well as a slew of pundits who spread lies in the pages and studios of "liberal" news organizations, too). Meanwhile, "both sider-ism" in the "mainstream media" allowed the Republican Party, no matter how far its mad rush to the right became, to maintain the illusion that it was somehow a "normal" "conservative" party, and that its efforts to deny science, oppose rights for women and minorities, trade in the most outrageous lies, etc., was just part of a political conversation in this country and not a perversion of American ideals and principles.

You don't arrive here by accident.  It's taken decades of complicity by countless participants, and now the corrosive effects can be plainly seen.

Today's Tomorrow Cartoon - Did You Say Something?

(click on image to enlarge)


(Tom Tomorrow, via Daily Kos)

Even with some in the media belatedly beginning to call a liar a liar, and with more and more editorials warning of the existential danger of a neo- fascist demagogue Donald "Rump" Trump presidency, a disturbingly large segment of the population, both Rump supporters and nominal "undecideds" don't seem to be heeding the blaring horns and flashing lights.  Here's why:  These people are "the Republican base," and it's come home for Rump.  In fact very few of these people seem to care if the demagogue lies, or bashes women, the disabled, Muslims, Hispanic and African Americans, etc. They actually thrill to it and seem to want more threats and violence from their weasel-headed hero. That Rump is in this position is, as Charles Pierce ably put it, a reflection of our poor citizenship:

For the balance of this election cycle, and largely due to the presence in it of this ridiculous man and his ridiculous campaign, the American people have proven themselves profoundly unworthy of being called citizens. [snip] 

[On the latest scandal] This likely will occasion another spasm of impotent introspection on the part of our elite political media on the topic of, "Why doesn't any of this stick?" But few of the members of that media will dare to look at the real answer, which is that there is a substantial constituency for what Trump has been peddling and that the elite political media has been pandering to that constituency every day since Trump became a genuine phenomenon. The racism is offensive and the economic insecurity is a dodge. Americans are bored with their democracy and they don't have the democratic energy to do anything about it, so they'll settle for an entertaining quasi-strongman. When they decline, democracies get the dictators they deserve. A country mired in apathy and lassitude gets a dictator who can't even put in the hard work of becoming very good at it. (our emphasis)

"Voters For Trump"

Saturday Night Live nails every lame excuse, rationalization and lazy Stormtrumper narrative:



BONUS:  Here's a good read on the intellectual laziness of the simplistic, sound- bite television/ consumer culture that Rump voters live in.

BONUS II:  Here's more on the link between racism and Republicans.

Nuremberg Comes To Las Vegas

Neo- fascist bag o' slime Donald "Rump" Trump was at a rally in Nuremberg Las Vegas speaking to a crowd of Stormtrumpers, showing that (as the old saying goes) "it takes one to know one:"

At his rally in Las Vegas, Trump said of the Texan senator: “This guy Cruz has lied more than any human being. He holds up the Bible, and he lies.”

Trump went on to complain about a “phony” Cruz ad airing in Nevada that accuses Trump of wanting to leave the state’s federal lands in the hands of the government. “This guy is sick, there’s something wrong with this guy,” Trump said.

We wouldn't argue with you so far, Rump.

Then, feeling empowered by the collective anger and hate from his knuckle- dragging audience, this happened:

When one of two hecklers interrupted the businessman, the property magnate openly talked of violence. “You know what they used to do with guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks,” he said.

Noting the protester was smiling as he was escorted out, Trump quipped: “I’d like to punch him in the face, I tell you that.”  [crowd erupting in cheers]

There's your Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid/ Shooter's Party front- runner, folks!  Is that not Presidential material!?  Lincolnesque!

In related news, the editorial board of the once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle weighed in on Republican National Chairstain Reince "Prepuce" Priebus' answer to a question concerning the Party's support should Rump win the nomination:

ON SUNDAY, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus whether the party would back Donald Trump should he win the GOP nomination. “Yes, we will support the nominee,” the Republican chairman replied. “To me, it’s a no-brainer.” Mr. Stephanopoulos asked if a Trump nomination would split the party. “Winning is the antidote to a lot of things,” Mr. Priebus responded.

Winning can quiet many complaints, it is true. But it cannot and will not be an antidote to the moral poison of Mr. Trump’s campaign. Party leaders who support and celebrate his victory will be accomplices to an attack on the fundamental values of American democracy. Winning will not wash away the stain.

Judging from the legions of flotsam showing up at Rump rallies, not to mention the followers of the "sick" extremist "Tailgunner Ted" Cruz and empty suit crank Sen. Marco "Roboto" Rubio, the "moral poison" about in the land is broad and deep and endangers us all.   Rump is the main symptom and channeling agent, but he's by no means the only one.

Sunday Cartoon - Problems

(click on image to enlarge)



(Tom Toles, once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle)

Republican Campaign Triptych: Hypocrites, Racists and Loons

Over at Salon, Dan Sinykin has been traveling with the three major contenders in the Republican clown car bus in Iowa, and finds the differences revealing. 

"Tailgunner Ted" Cruz supporters:

... Cruz makes a joke about how, when the pope was in town, Obama made things awkward by answering to His Holiness. The crowd is delighted.

Other of Cruz’s jokes have more sinister implications. He tells one where the punch line is about using pesticides on regulators, another about how, after his presidency, countless members of the media will have checked themselves into therapy. A favorite of his involves padlocking the IRS and relocating its employees to the southern border. “Think about it, sir,” he says. “Imagine you traveled thousands of miles in the blazing sun, you’re swimming the Rio Grande, and the first thing you see is 90,000 IRS agents. You’d turn around and go home, too!”

Imagine it, indeed. One might pause to imagine the suffering endured by migrants under that sun, but Cruz has the crowd under his spell.  [Ed. note - Remember it's Cruz who's the candidate of the "Christian" evangelical movement.]

A Marco "Glug Glug" Rubio supporter:

“It’s just not the party I grew up with,” says Stephen Blobaum, an IT worker from Des Moines. “This racial stuff,” he says with a sigh, “it’s gone from insinuations to right in your face racism.”  [Ed. note - It was much more tolerable for him when it was just the dog whistles.]

A "Rump" Trump supporter:

An elderly man approaches me as I take notes. He asks what I’m doing. I tell him I’m a professor. “I’ve had my fill of fucking intellectuals,” he says, but he clearly wants to talk. The air fills with “Jingle Bells.”

“I love Trump,” he says. “He’s not an intellectual. He says he’s going to make America great again, that excites me. I got so excited I went out and bought a tricycle. I can’t hardly walk, but I bought a tricycle on just hope. I got it in August—end of October, 14 miles I was going on it, my Trump hat on backwards, going down the highway.”

“I just got excited about it,” he says. “The man excites me.” [Ed. note -  An elderly man, possibly with a stiffie,  riding his tricycle done the road with his Trump hat on backwards ... those are the people who are going to "Make America Great Again."]

Hypocrites, racists and loons.  Quite a base you're working with there, Republicans!  Well- deserved after decades of nurturing, of course.

BONUS:  Michael Grunwald on the Crazy you might have missed while the spotlight was on "Rump" Trump.

First They Came For….

Adding to the pile on against neo-fascist narcissist Donald "Rump" Trump, a number of major daily newspapers have labeled his remarks about stopping entry of all Muslims un-American and bigoted. His proposed ban would include U.S. citizens visiting relatives abroad and Muslim citizens working in our counterintelligence and law enforcement agencies.  Here's an excerpt from the front page editorial in the Detroit Free Press, which points out, as was pointed out in the post below and here, that there' a long history of this toxic nonsense in the Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid/ Shooters Party:

"Trump's soaring support reveals harsh truths about the party base that so-called establishment Republicans have built, with fear and bigotry and xenophobia, with the notion that a fictitious, former America should be our ideal — ignoring the reality of life for women and minorities during that golden age — and most harmfully, by perpetuating the idea that success for others, particularly non-white, non-Christian, non-heterosexual, non-male others, means they will lose. It's a false equation, but one that has given Republican candidates significant traction among some demographies."

This is the subtext for the last 50 years of Republican politics: fear. And hatred.

The New York Daily News captured the sum of the policies advanced by Rump in their front page today, borrowing from the famous statement regarding the Nazis by German pastor Martin Niemöller:

Feeding the prejudices and fear of a significant number of Americans for decades for political advantage ("wedge issues" anyone?) has been the business model of the Rethuglican party and their right wing media outlets.  The "both siders" and "tire swingers" in the corporate media have not  stepped up and told the truth that Rump and his followers are the harvest of that decades-long project, a harvest that now threatens to engulf them.  Not holding our breath on that one.

BONUS:  Let's not pretend that the majority of all Rethug voters don't approve of Rump's punitive "policies" against Muslims.  They do, big time.

Monday Morning Read - Telling Ghost Stories

In this morning's read, Charles P. Pierce tells us that the lying "ghost stories" told by Republicans to their credulous base is nothing new:

As with so many things, this all began with Ronald Reagan. Those people who claim that Donald Trump is sui generis in this regard are very much the same as those people who find him a unique political phenomenon, instead of the logical end product of almost 40 years of conservative politics. Reagan was as full of crap as the Christmas goose, and in the same way that Trump and Carson are. Trump has dancing Muslims. Reagan had the fictitious welfare queen in Chicago. Carson had his attempt to stab a classmate. Reagan had his march into Auschwitz to liberate the death camp there. The difference is that Reagan slung his hooey with a smile and a wink. Trump has weaponized Reagan's fabulism and that seems to make a difference to some people. But nothing that has happened in this campaign, up to and including the latest spasm of outright bigotry and fear-mongering, is new in the recent history of Republican politics. It always is the person who tells the best ghost stories who wins.  [snip]

It is Trump, abetted by the initial cowardice of his fellow Republicans and by the pure bumfuzzlement of the elite political press, who has made this a campaign of competing ghost stories. American politics has been slouching toward the supernatural for three decades now, since Ronald Reagan marched into Auschwitz in his mind. The whole system is clogged now with corporate money and ectoplasm. Nothing moves. All ghosts are essentially spirits who find themselves trapped.   (our emphasis)

This is why truth and facts are of no concern to these people.  In reality, the bigger the lies, the more successful you are as a right- wing Republican politician.  That's because the Republicans' angry, frothing base likely has been living in an impenetrable right- wing post- truth bubble their entire lives.  They're been predictably susceptible to fearing any number of boogie men over the years:  unions, blacks, Hispanics, gays and lesbians, secular progressives, etc., etc. Therefore, nothing is "true" to them except their deepest gut fears and prejudices, which have been carefully nurtured by decades of right- wing misdirection and fabulism.  

If The Media Think Just Trump's The Problem, They're Part Of The Problem

Let's see what frequent blind squirrel Dana Milbank dug up this morning:

For months — years, really — Republicans have averted their gaze from Trump’s attacks on women, Hispanics and immigrants. Now the racism becomes more overt — and still, he goes unchallenged.  [snip]

[T]he front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination talks about the forced registration of Muslims. Republican leaders look away. And Trump surges in the polls, regaining the lead he had lost before the Paris attacks. For Republican leaders and rival candidates, these are the wages of cowardice.

Two months ago, after the second GOP debate, I saw signs that Republican hopefuls had begun to think it safe to take on Trump “consistently and jointly.” But that didn’t continue, and Republicans are now stuck with a collective-action problem. There’s no incentive for an individual Republican candidate to take on Trump only to get mowed down by his counterassault. Instead, some rivals are imitating Trump’s positions.

No shit, Sherlock!  Well, there's a reason they're the party of fear and loathing!  Milbank might wait until the final primary ballot is cast before he comes to the realization that the main difference between Rump and his rivals is that Rump is the ugly, nativist Republican id with the volume turned up and no filter, and the rest of the field simply prefers the volume lower with some weasel words to cover up the crazy.  Likewise, Milbank's editorial board at the once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle is vainly looking for someone in the Republican ranks to "stand up" to the bully Rump, as though the party's problem is Rump and not the party's ignorant, nativist base that's been nurtured for 40 years to fear and hate. That's who the other moral flyweights in the party fear and to whom they knuckle under.

We'll see if The New York Times can do any better:

Mr. Trump relies on social media to spread his views. This is convenient because there’s no need to respond to questions about his fabrications. That makes it imperative that other forms of media challenge him.

Instead, as Mr. Trump stays at the top of the Republican field, it’s become a full-time job just running down falsehoods like the phony crime statistics he tweeted, which came from a white supremacist group.

Yet Mr. Trump is regularly rewarded with free TV time, where he talks right over anyone challenging him, and doubles down when called out on his lies.

This isn’t about shutting off Mr. Trump’s bullhorn. His right to spew nonsense is protected by the Constitution, but the public doesn’t need to swallow it. History teaches that failing to hold a demagogue to account is a dangerous act. It’s no easy task for journalists to interrupt Mr. Trump with the facts, but it’s an important one.  (our emphasis)

Why stop with Rump?  Why not interrupt every one of the craven, crackpot Republican candidates running for President and hold them accountable for their dangerous lies?  Is smarmy Sen. "Tailgunner Ted" Cruz any less a demagogue?  Or Dr. "Mental Ben" Carson?  How about the un-American views on religious tests for refugees spouted by "moderate" "J.E.B.!" Bush?  Or "Snarly" Carly Fiorina hallucinating about "100,000 Syrian refugees?"  And the imaginary "war" being waged on Christians, as seen by American Taliban demagogue Mike "Huckster" Huckabee? And on and on down into the sewer of American politics.

We would like to ask the frightened, "both sides do it" media to think about what it's costing our nation by failing to hold to account every one of these far- right candidates' disgusting, Islamophobic, homophobic, anti- black, anti- Hispanic, neo- fascist rantings.  Because, to this point, they've been getting away with it, and it's long past time for the media to be committing the most basic acts of journalism.

In-Bred Gun Humpers Greet Obama In Oregon

Such nice, bright people you got there.  They must be Republicans!

If brains were gunpowder, they wouldn't have enough to blow their collective noses.  File under: Why we can't have nice things in this country.

UPDATE:  Steve M. has background on the upstanding citizen cretin who organized the anti-Obama demonstrations.

The Republican Party - Of, By, And For The Stupid

There are some interesting, but only in a pathological sense, numbers in a recent poll from Public Policy Polling about beliefs held by Republicans, and by Donald "Rump" Trump supporters in particular:

Our new poll finds that Trump is benefiting from a GOP electorate that thinks Barack Obama is a Muslim and was born in another country, and that immigrant children should be deported. 66% of Trump's supporters believe that Obama is a Muslim to just 12% that grant he's a Christian. 61% think Obama was not born in the United States to only 21% who accept that he was. And 63% want to amend the Constitution to eliminate birthright citizenship, to only 20% who want to keep things the way they are. And 63% want to amend the Constitution to eliminate birthright citizenship, to only 20% who want to keep things the way they are.

Trump's beliefs represent the consensus among the GOP electorate. 51% overall want to eliminate birthright citizenship. 54% think President Obama is a Muslim. And only 29% grant that President Obama was born in the United States.  (our emphasis)

On that last point, to demonstrate how terminally clueless (or willfully ignorant) Republicans are, the pollsters report this comparison (click on image to enlarge):

Um, as most people who don't play with their toes know, President Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii (USA! USA!) "Tailgunner Ted" Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, eh.  But, Obama ... different!   Martin Longman (BooMan) explains in some detail how this ignorance gap was engineered:

What the Republicans did was create an electorate that didn’t previously exist. Sure, the gullible people were there already, but they weren’t misinformed and they weren’t sorted politically.

The reason this was done by Republicans, I believe, is because the conservative movement has determined that they can hold onto power a little longer despite demographic changes and the browning of America if they can sharply increase their share of the white vote. And the way to do that is not to figure out what these people need and offer ways to give it to them, but to get them to think more in terms of their whiteness. Whites go over here in the right column and everyone else goes over there in the left column.  [snip]

It’s a transparent effort to ramp up racial animosity as a way, probably the only way, to avoid softening their positions on their conservative ideology. If they don’t do this, then they’ll have to recraft their appeal, which means that conservatives will lose control of the Republican Party– one of only two viable parties in the country.

Once you understand what has happened in this way, everything else begins to make more sense. And you can see why the RNC’s advice to pass comprehensive immigration reform was rejected by the Republican-led House of Representatives because they’re the ones benefiting from the racial polarization of the country and higher levels of tribal thinking among whites. Senators, by and large, do not benefit from this since they have to run statewide.

Now, this leads to an interesting place, because, looked at this way, Donald Trump is almost a savior for conservatism despite being a heretic on several items on the traditional conservative movement’s agenda. He’s a savior because he’s completely internalized the strategy that will allow them to continue on without moderating to appeal to a changing electorate: make whites think more about their whiteness. [snip]

So, Trump helped create and sort this ridiculously misinformed Republican electorate and now he is the clear beneficiary. But he was by no means alone. It was, essentially, a group project that the Republican Establishment signed off on when they thought it could benefit them in beating Obama. (our emphasis)

For all their decades- long efforts to stay in power by feeding nonsense to an ever angrier, ever more ignorant white base, it's a fitting reward that "establishment" Republicans are now being consumed by the tiger they thought they could control.

BONUS:  David Corn has a good read, similar thrust.